We've got a few people who are responding to this post defending the usage of IQ, questioning that IQ is still used, assuming I don't know what IQ means, etc. I have neither the time nor the inclination to reply to each of these people and try to teach/prove anything to them, so I will simply say this.

I am trained in psychology and education at the master's level so I am fully aware of what it is, where it came from, how it works, etc. Moreover, I have had modern iterations of intelligence scales administered to me. Finally, I have worked in schools for 11 years in special education & counseling so I am very familiar with how these things function in the real world.

Psychology, education, medicine, etc are all irrevocably tainted by their participation in white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, and so on. These disciplines are not neutral or objective and their abuse of marginalized groups has never stopped. The tools, metrics, labels, definitions, categories, and all other outgrowths of these twisted and corrupted areas of study are therefore also sites of oppression. IQ is one of the worst of these.

Do your own research on scientific racism, yes. But also just know that our research tools are not exempt from those glaring flaws either. If you are going to even come close to finding something remotely resembling the truth, you have got to engage with these things critically. You have got to have the courage to reject the incorrect and violent assumptions underpinning these various fields. You have got to be ruthless with yourself also, for everything that you have been taught has the seeds of oppression within it.

None of what I said was wrong. IQ is fake. It's white supremacist propaganda. Get your shit together and THINK FOR YOURSELF

@tillshadeisgone

The IQ test was also debunked a million times. And yet, people still use it to justify their bigotry (and failing miserably).

@tillshadeisgone

Yeah, I know what you mean

If IQ was the absolute value it's supposed to be, then taking the test multiple times should result in essentially the same number.

But most of us learn from our mistakes, so that never made sense to me about the whole thing.

@tillshadeisgone Also besides IQ, I remember some gatekeeper college entrance test, maybe SAT in the 1960s where they had these logic puzzle questions. I had never seen anything like it and couldn’t do them.

Later I realized you were supposed to buy these study guides to learn how to take the tests, but I was lower middle class whose parents hadn’t gone to college so had no idea.

@tillshadeisgone ooc: not only is IQ a racist fantasy, it's also a sexist one! They found that people with girl parts on average outperformed people with boy parts until they weighted spatial reasoning more heavily. Guess what it weighs more heavily now. Total dogshit racist sexist fantasyland hogwash number.

As an adult who does not work in the education or psychology space, I have basically only heard the worst people you can imagine talk about IQ like it is in any way a helpful number.

@tillshadeisgone
Specifics of the origin aside, Radiolab did an excellent piece on the case of "Larry P" a few years ago that brilliantly and horrifyingly tells the story of how it became illegal in California to administer an IQ test to a child who is Black (but any other child remains fair game).

https://radiolab.org/podcast/g-miseducation-larry-p

@tillshadeisgone I take your word that IQ and its foundations are deeply flawed. In any case, at best, it reduces something ephemeral, complex and multidimensional to a single number without context.

I'm gifted. Due to my male sex and white skin, I'm more likely to be diagnosed and to benefit. Still, I also suffer. Giftedness is a real condition with disadvantages. I understand why you want to say this, but when you claim that IQ is only bunk, it feels like you deny my problems and that hurts.